Uncategorized

Just saw an ad by Fabienne Fredrickson, saying something along the lines:

“after 20 years of coaching I’m more sure than ever before, that the REAL secret is the ‘mindset‘”

Sooo, on the one hand I agree 100% with the observation that the ‘right’ mindset is indeed THE one difference between … well, whatever tickles your fancy 

(some random Googling just told me that e.g. on Long Island there are plenty of houses for sale in the $40-$50M range. Yes, that’s an M. And I thought Oxford was ‘expensive’;-) …. 

… and hoping that one day you may just hit the jackpot.

On the other hand … I disagree about 99% with the way most ‘self-improvement’ gurus/books/courses go about it:

visualisation, big hairy audacious goals, vision boards, NLP, self-hypnosis … etc.

(and PLENTY of opportunities to pay the guru tens of $K for ‘retreats’ where the ultimate copout is: “well, you clearly didn’t REALLY want it” in case you don’t succeed).


Here’s my take (sooo much cheaper, and so much quicker)

(and this is based on observing what happened in my own life over the last 10+ years of being self-employed, and in plenty of coaching clients’ lives)

by far, the quickest way to ‘fix’ your mindset is to DO some sh*t, get some results, get to the realization that

1. it wasn’t as scary and lifethreatening as your subsconscious made it out to be, and
2. “man, this s**t works! Wow, let’s do some more of it“
   
   

doesn’t (heck: *shouldn’t*) be ‘epic’ stuff. 

As they say: it’s all about the baby-steps.

And not getting distracted from doing baby-steps.

Ever seen a baby take their first steps?

They don’t take one step, and then think:

“heck, that’s pretty cool, but look over there, there’s a football. I think I’m going to kick that as step #2. And oh, wow, listen to that music my parents are playing. Tango? I’ll do that as step #3…“

No, boring babies focus on the fundamentals. And do the boring ol’ single stepping until they’ve MASTERED it.

And that’s of course also the reason why so many people go to expensive retreats, visualize until the purple cows come home, plaster their offices in vision boards and so on …

… instead of doing what’s BORING and REPETITIVE.

Goodness me, I hope I didn’t share a big dark secret of ‘home-business’: a lot of it is boring and repetitive…

… and yet I keep doing it until I’ve mastered it, and then, I can systematize it.

I’m going to stop myself here before I go into a full rant, and instead summarize for you:

1. mindset is the difference between living on Long Island … or a cardboard box.​​​​​​​​​​
2. the fastest and most effective way to ‘change/fix’ your mindset is to DO stuff, and get some results – because THAT’s the only real way your subconscious (<- mindset) can change.
3. keep the ‘stuff’ small, because anything ‘epic’ is going to scare your subconscious.
   

 

And that’s precisely why I’m such a big fan of the LEAN approach, and now very (VERY) excited about the ‘Sprint’ approach (heck, if it’s good enough for Google, it’s good enough for me;-)

As I’ve said in my previous email, if you’re into email-marketing/list-building, check out ‘InboxingPro’, as I’m adding my summary of ‘Sprint’ with my take on how to use the Sprint-approach to list-building (figuring out what people really want, and then giving them just THAT) as a bonus for all buyers of InboxingPro.

In case you haven’t seen my review of InboxingPro yet, here it is:

Check out InboxingPro whilst it’s still available at launch-pricing

Cheers

Veit

PS: saw another FB post where someone was ranting about the self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who’ve done something for 6months, and now they’re “experts”.

Yes, if you don’t do anything else, and you’re 100% focused on that one task, you can get pretty dang good at something in 6 months.

But ‘experts’ are people who not only have figured out what works … but also a ton of ways that one thing does NOT work.

And now 6 months is starting to just not have enough time in it…. 

(when I look back over my 10 years+ of doing this online marketing thing … it would be awesome to see a graph of ‘what worked vs what didn’t work’. It would be like one of those comparisons of ‘the biggest stars in the Universe’: and this speck over here is our sun. And this bad boy over here is alpha-centaurus-mega-omega-3…. where sadly the latter is the stuff that didn’t work;-)

(and when I say ‘sadly’ … it’s of course not ‘sad’: because without those ‘failures’, I wouldn’t know what does NOT work.

So it’s not really ‘failures’ at all, it’s ‘stuff that doesn’t work’)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

 

I needed a quick script coded up for one of my sites, so put a quick project up on Freelancer – and clearly stated that they have to mention a “secret” word:

a full 2 out of 10 managed to include it in the first sentence.
(which incidentally is *unusual* – it’s usually somewhere between 0 and 1 out of 10….)

Now, here’s the bit where I’m getting excited:

one of the freelancers,

1.  included the secret word
2. asked intelligent questions, and *drum-roll*
3. arranged to have a meeting on MONDAY, instead of agreeing to a Sunday-meeting.

This too is extremely rare on Freelancer.com – and it’s a good (no: fabulous) sign!

Every time I hear an enthusiastic: “yes, sure, I can do it, and I can do it by yesterday” … I already know it’s not going to work.

Anyway, this isn’t just a random rant, but instead a gentle reminder:

you have to value your time!

(yes, I command you: value your time!;-)

No, seriously:

whatever you’re doing, the main you should be doing is looking for ways/methods that minimise the time you spend on it, and maximise the results you get out of it.

That’s why I’m including that little “secret word” type thing in my projects …

… and no matter how “cheap” the offer by some of those who didn’t read the specification – it’s just not a good use of my time dealing with the fallout later on (and fallout there is, pretty much guaranteed)

Here are some examples of ValueYourTime (VYT)

Example #1: take Tim Castleman’s course on ‘affiliate marketing done right’:

your job would be to dive in, write down your top 5 take-aways, then rank them by “doability”, and get crackin’ on the most ‘doable’.

no point building massive fantasy-castles of what you *could* do (and if you need a deterrent – just picture Tim Castleman in a pink fairy-dress on a 3-legged unicorn hunting you down in case you do!)

Example #2: Ryan Lee has a lovely membership program (Freedym) where I’ve been member since … well forever.

and in that time I’ve logged in maybe a dozen times…

… to get precisely the specific information I need right there, right then. Nothing more.

You could spend days, no, weeks in there … and learn about all kinds of wonderful things. But, my time is too valuable for that.

if I were to calculate it as “cost per login” … frig, that would be an insane number.

But, if I turn it into a “time saved” by not having to hunt around calculation … it’s a no-brainer for me.

Which is also why I seek out ‘courses’ that are based on case-studies where they also cover the stuff that did NOT work – that’s usually where you waste most of the time – trying to figure out stuff that *should* work, but isn’t.

Same goes for templates – if someone has made the effort to really dissect something and figure out what works and what doesn’t – heck, I’d be a fool NOT to leverage this.

Example #3: Chris Winters asked about Webinars in a FB post earlier today – have a look at his “deciding factor” response to a comment: (also read Stephen Boyle & Tom Graber’s responses)

Stephen & Tom value their time!

which is also why I’m restructuring many of my future webinars, videos etc – I’m looking to attract those who know that they value their time – heck, maybe I’ll do a webinar on just how to structure those kinds of webinars;-)

on on that happy note:

VYT!

Now!

Veit

PS: knowing Tim, I  wouldn’t be overly surprised if he had some selfies of him riding a 3-legged unicorn…

PPS: and in case you’re wondering: I then ‘spend’ my time gained by watching a 2lb dry-aged piece of butcher’s art slow-smoke into a melt-in-the-mouth dinner for 4 in the smoker in ‘only’ 5h (click on it to see it in its full glory)

here’s an article absolutely worth reading
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-39706765

(the title “Is inequality about to get unimaginably worse?”
gives you a hint how important it really is!)

it’s no longer really a question of IF you’ll have to choose which side you want to be on, but WHEN.

(seriously, read the BBC article, otherwise the rest of this post won’t make sense)

Just to illustrate: here’s some seriously life-changing medical development:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39746027

but guess who is going to have that stuff implanted?

Certainly not the unwashed (and no longer useful) masses!

The big question is: are you going to be on the “useful” … or on the “no longer of use” side of the equation?

Apologies if this comes across as a little bit ‘too scary’ for a sunny Saturday morning … but ignoring this is the same thing as not taking care of your retirement YOURSELF, instead of relying on someone else.

I don’t know about your country, but even here in Germany, the power-house of Europe, we have massively increasing rates of people who retire … pretty much with NOTHING, simply because they didn’t take responsibility earlier on in life!

Which is also why e.g. I’m so p***sed off by this stupid nonsense with the guy who gets dragged off the flight, and gets compensation:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39739737

the real issue is this: we (yes, YOU and I and everybody else) have a large role to play in this!

We don’t take FULL responsibility!

Take the example of the overbooked flight situation:

We demand rock-bottom prices …

… but are not willing to accept that at rock-bottom pricing, … well, there isn’t much room for things like ‘customer service’, having enough wiggle room to transport another 4 staff without having to throw people off the flight etc.

The same applies to your DSL, your mobile phone provider, quite possibly your health-insurance, most of the things we buy …

in many/most cases happily ignoring the destructive impact it has (working & living conditions in the Far East + rapid destruction of the environment over there come to mind).

Every time you get the “cheapest” possible deal … someone, somewhere has to cut corners and “take”.

Right now, we can “push” the impact of those actions “away” in many cases … but as the BBC article suggests: that is going to change, and it’s going to change fast.

To use Steven Covey’s analogy: you can’t keep withdrawing from the back-account, at some point you have to deposit.

And that’s precisely what we as a species are NOT doing at the moment: depositing!

Not nearly enough!

The good/scary/bad news (depending on which side you’re on) is this:

those who just take, take, take are precisely those who will quickly find themselves on the “oh look, you just outlived your usefulness” side of the equation (fortunately, they won’t even really notice because they’re too busy staring at their mobile phones addicted to the regular buzz they get from the other ‘takers’)

So, to come back to the title of this post: it’s not really about “ending up” on either side – it’s all about choosing your path to get to the side you want to be on!

Your thoughts? Which side are you going to be on – and what actions are you actually taking to make sure you’re going to be there?

Veit

Today I have a piece in 3 acts for you – all part of a bigger picture:

Act #1: I was wrong about John Carlton’s teachings.

You see, when I first encountered John Carlton’s copywriting, (bought his Kick-ass copywriting rebel guide) … what struck me was that it *appeared* to be all about power-words, ‘juicing/amping up’ the headlines etc.

And whilst that still certainly is a big component of what he teaches … I recently checked out his ‘launch-webinar’ for the upcoming (today?) Simply Writing System.

And when you listen closely, you’ll notice that really, he’s all about “permission based marketing” … on that webinar recording he says it quite a few times: (I’m paraphrasing):

if there isn’t enough trust, you need to back off.

Here’s the thing: of course I can’t be sure if he said those same words back when I first encountered John …

but assuming he did (a fundamental philosophy like this is unlikely to change that quickly) …

then it goes to show that back then, that message was simply ‘invisible’ to me:

I was a rookie when it comes to copywriting … and as a result my brain was focused on the ‘obvious’ stuff.

Back then I thought (because that is what the message was out in the marketplace), that copywriting is all about ‘persuasion’.

so my brain was looking for ‘persuasion’ stuff … like powerwords etc (which my brain also didn’t like, hence the inner conflict;-) …

… but it completely missed any (potential) mentioning of “woah, you’ve got to back off and only use ‘persuasion’ when people are ready to be persuaded.

So, the key lessons here:

1. accept the fact that your brain can only pick up the information it is ‘tuned into’. (as a consequence: keep challenging what the ‘market’ tells you … there tend to be ‘trends’ which can easily trap you into a ‘false’ belief-set)
2. if & when you position your own offer, and you have a message that goes against the overall ‘trend’ … make sure to highlight that part of your message, really make it stand out – because as you can see from above: if/when the market is indoctrinated to believe one thing, they may well completely miss your message because it it ‘invisible’ to them

If you’re lucky, their launch-content is still up, so check it out here.

Act #2: On Creating Digital Products

Now, John’s course is obviously a ‘digital’ product (with a live coaching component) … and it’s a fine example of a ‘useful’ course, because it ticks certain boxes I’ll get back to shortly.

and if you want to learn how to create such ‘useful’ digital products (whether it’s an actual ‘product’ you want to sell, or just the ‘ethical bribe’ you give away in exchange for an email address), you’ll get a lot out of Eben Pagan’s video here.

(plus a whole bunch of great lil’ goodies on the thank-you page … you need to sign up twice, which is a bit silly, (lol, personally, I don’t like ‘inefficiency’ … I would’ve preferred a tick-box along the lines: “yes, send me your book and that video too”;-)

The reason I mention Eben as an example is … that his courses actually provide pretty substantial value. And when I say ‘value’ … I mean not ‘perceived’ value, or ‘fear of loss’-style value pummeled into your scared brain with enough scarcity and bonuses.

Here’s why this matters:

When you combine such ‘real’ value with the next ‘mini-act’, you’ve got yourself a nice lil’ (or big) win-winner:

Act #3: how to create an ‘infinte’ life-time-value

ok it’s not ‘infinite’, but keeps rising and rising.

Just applied to sign up to yet another Perry Marshall offer … and a big component ‘why’ (apart from the information I want of course) is that he does ‘rejection’ marketing:

you actually need to qualify, and demonstrate that you’re a good fit

Unlike e.g. Jeff Walker who’ll take anybody’s cash all day long, no matter if they’re a good fit or not.

And when you now look at the 3 pieces together … what happens when you’re ‘brainwashed’ into believing one side of the story, Eben Pagan’s take on Digital products and Perry Marshall’s healthy bank-balance …

… you’ll quite possibly notice something:

more likely than not, you have been brainwashed to believe that you must sell as hard as you can.

And that it’s ok to deliver sub-par products because “hey, most people don’t even open the packaging, never mind go through the course”.

And more likely than not, once you start questioning that ‘wisdom’, you’ll realize that the real fortune is elsewhere.

(hint: starting to create products people actually WANT to consume, and then making sure you only sell to those who CAN consume them would probably be a good starting point…)

Cheers

Veit

​

So, over the last few days my inbox is flooded with all kinds of “must have” offers, like yet another email autoresponder tool, another page-builder, another ecom-inspector to find the latest ‘hidden, undiscovered’ gem in the Aliexpress world, the latest this, that and the other.

So, here’s my wee lil’ rant:

stop dickin’ about (SDA), ignore pretty much all of that, and get going.

Here’s the recipe, in case you’re wondering: To succeed with online marketing you need

1. landing pages. Get yourself a tool you’re comfortable with, spend a couple of hours actually going through the documentation. If the tool can do landing pages, and – added bonus – thank-you pages, that’s probably all you need.
   SDA with the latest & greatest – it’s just a distraction from your real job: figuring out what offers convert.
2. an email autoresponder. Let me ask you this: do you truly believe that your email/subscriber list is your biggest and most important asset? If so, SDA with the latest & greatest self-hosted, or new cloud-hosted autoresponder service – that’s the equivalent of having unprotected sex with random strangers in the alley behind a seedy nightclub … usually doesn’t last long, and tends to come with all kinds of nasty surprises. Just get yourself one of the ‘big’ hosted providers, and be done with it.
3. ‘traffic’: aka: visitors to your landing pages, so they can sign up to your email list. SDA with ‘free’ or low-cost strategies like SEO, solo-ads, penny-clicks etc. Low cost in almost all cases means: either nobody else has managed to make it work (and therefore it’s cheap), or it’s not cheap at all because it requires a ton of work (as is the case e.g. with SEO). Instead, set aside a few bucks for FB/YT/IG ads and be done with it.
4. a great offer: SDA with the latest & greatest ‘research’, niche-identifier, ninja-hidden-gold BS tool. Reality: 99.999% of all ‘winners’ have already been discovered. Your job is to take one where you can provide value, then add your own unique positioning to it. And with that, you attract (via traffic that goes to your landing pages) prospective clients who then sign up to your email list … and if you keep providing value, you’ll live happily ever after. Especially, when you combine this strong offer with
5. Digital Products: it’s all about ‘providing REAL value’, so SDA with PLR, hyped-up promises, or all kinds of tricks to get people to hand over their contact information, and later on hard-earned cash. A great offer works best when combined with a great digital product – no matter how big or small (in fact, for ‘capturing emails, it should be either extremely small (super-easy to consume), or extremely big (massive thud-factor)). Learn how to create fast ‘n easy, high-value digital products, and now you don’t only live happily ever after, you’re also loved happily ever after.

Once you have those tools, all you need to add is a healthy dose of “stick-with-it-iness”, and I guarantee, you will succeed!

The end

Veit

PS: If you want to know what I use:

• Autoresponder: ActiveCampaign (over 2 years now) & Aweber (using them for over 10 years now)
• Landing Page Builder: Convertri (if you’re genuinely interested, let me know and I may be able to organize a discount code for you)(also search my Youtube Channel for a comparison with all kinds of other landing page builders)
• Traffic: FB ads
• Offers: … I just test ideas using the simple steps explained in the Attract & Nurture workshop